You can have Jay-Z, Kanye, Tupac, Biggie, and both M and M. To me the greatest wrapper in history is a 76-year old Bulgarian.
He’s wrapped the Reichstag, the Pont Neuf, and islands in Florida; he’s erected gates in Central Park, and umbrellas in Japan and California.
Next up is Southern Colorado, where Christo is getting closer to approval to Over The River, where he’ll suspend almost six miles of giant panels above a 42-mile stretch of the Arkansas River.
As usual, he has to go through countless rounds of talks with various governmental agencies to get approval, and he’ll finance the project with his money, earned through sales of his work. But he’ll get there. He’s smart and he’s persistent.
His life long partner and collaborator, wife jean Claude, died in 2009. They were fated to be together, having been born on the same day.
I’ve been a huge fan for a long time, and volunteered to help build the umbrellas in California. I was turned down, not by a form letter, but by a personalized letter from Jean-Claude, sent in an envelope stuffed with postcards of Christo’s work.
Admirers cite different reasons for loving the work. For me, it’s the pure audaciousness of the projects. Big, beautiful, and impossible not to notice. As simple as child’s drawings, yet so complicated, and so amazingly, incredibly original.
Check out Over The River. See the gift a truly audacious artist can give.
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